This is CBC Television.
Monday, October 3rd. Tonight on The National, the first poll of the campaign and Brian Mulrooney's on top.
Unaccomplished. A perfect end to America's return to space.
And on the journal, the insiders, the policy advisors and image makers behind the leaders.
Their strategies for the campaign. A documentary by Terrence McKenna.
The National with Peter Mansbridge.
Good evening. Conservatives are feeling pretty good tonight.
The first poll of this election campaign is out and it indicates the Prime Minister's election timing couldn't have been much better.
It's a Gallup poll taken after Saturday's call and the Tories are on top with their best showing since November of 1986.
They have 43% of the decided vote. That's 10 points ahead of the Liberals and almost double the total of the NDP.
The poll is said to have a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
If the numbers hold until election night, the Conservatives would win another majority government.
The poll also found that most people consider free trade to be the most important issue of the campaign.
And that's just what the Prime Minister was talking about today as Wendy Mesley reports.
What a send off. Well wishes at the airport, a clear sky and best of all for Brian Mulroney, a new Gallup poll.
It shows Canadians not only like his party, they like him. The poll says that Mulroney is now the most popular of all three leaders.
His first stop was in southern Ontario and today's poll explains why.
Ontario is the only province where the Tories are still trailing the Liberals.
If their support holds in Quebec and in the West, to win a majority Mulroney will still need to win about one third of Ontario's 99 seats.
It's roddings like Halden Peel that may determine whether Mulroney gets his majority.
There's a lot of concern here about his free trade deal with the United States.
So the Conservative leader chose to visit a plastics molding plant that hopes to benefit from the deal.
I'm just wondering what you think free trade will do to this plant. Will it help or hurt?
I think it will definitely help because 95% of our produce goes abroad.
Still some of the workers say they need to be convinced it's a good deal.
What do you want to hear?
That it would be good and good points behind it. Back it up.
Mulroney did his best to convince them. He admitted that the trade deal may not be perfect, but he predicted it will create 100,000 jobs in Ontario alone.
Then he challenged his critics to say how they'll create jobs.
And ask them this. After they've torn up the free trade agreement, ask them what they're going to do for you and for your jobs.
Everywhere Mulroney went today, security was extremely tight.
Party supporters had access to the Conservative leader, but reporters didn't.
He refused to answer any of their questions, and at a public event tonight near London, his handlers took the unusual step of restricting the media to one corner.
Mulroney is back on top of the polls. He's determined to stay there, and it seems he thinks that avoiding the media will help him do that.
Wendy Nestle, CBC News, Lambeth, Ontario.
The last public opinion poll before the election call was done by Angus Reed, and it had different results.
It had the NDP in second place. Gallup says the party is third. But that result caused no gloom in the NDP camp today.
Ed Broadbent is in Alberta tonight for his first major campaign speech in English Canada.
He flew west from Quebec after picking up an important endorsement. Paul Workman reports.
Election after election, it's always been the same in Quebec. The NDP has never won a seat. Zero.
But this time, for the first time, says Ed Broadbent, it's a three-way fight in Quebec, and his party will not come up empty.
What Canadians want is a government that's honest, says Broadbent, and Brian Mulroney's hasn't been, hasn't kept his word.
He says the Conservatives promised to raise pensions, promised to clean up the environment, and promised to get rid of patronage.
Brian Mulroney, a tille tenu, said promise? C'est la question.
And did they keep that promise? No, says Broadbent. They replaced liberal patronage with Tory patronage.
As for John Turner, Broadbent ridiculed him too, as the leader of a party that can't make up its mind.
If ever a party and leader in Canadian history didn't know what they were and who they represented, it's John Turner and the Liberal Party of Canada today.
It was a strong speech, almost all in French, and the icing on the cake was Louis Le Berge, head of Quebec's most powerful labour organisation, pledging support and money and workers for the NDP as never before.
In the last two federal elections, I must admit that we, yes, we did say we're in agreement with the NDP, but that was it. We didn't work real hard at all. But this time we're going to work hard.
The Labour Federation says it wants to kill the free trade deal, and that's why it's so important to get behind the NDP this time.
Whatever the reason, it's a significant day for Ed Broadbent to get a big Quebec union to support the NDP with more than just words.
Paul Workman, CBC News, Montreal.
John Turner isn't going flat out yet. For the second day in a row, his campaign day ended before noon. But though his appearances are short, the Liberals believe they're also good. Here is Keith Bogue.
We're going to have a little show here now, and it's your show, and we've got a microphone there.
This morning, John Turner looked completely at ease taking questions from Ottawa High School students.
There's somebody behind you there.
Turner likes this format. It gives him an opportunity to show his grip on the issues people want to talk about. Perhaps more importantly, he can also show that he's become a smoother politician than he was in 1984.
What do you plan to do about the pollution in the Great Lakes?
This is a mutual problem. We're destroying our atmosphere. We're destroying our lakes. We're destroying our forests. Let's, as good neighbours, do what we did with our water. Let's start cleaning it up. OK.
The Liberals are determined to prove that they are a better team than the one that campaigned so poorly in the last election. They feel they've already made a good start.
At this local writing office this morning, everything was made to look ready for action, as though the election were tomorrow, not seven weeks away.
On the walls, lists of polling captains who will work election day. Maps of the writing targeting areas for blitz canvassing.
In fact, though, in almost a third of the writings, the Liberals don't even have a candidate nominated yet, and they still have to get their story straight on the abortion question.
Some Turner aides still insist the leader will lay out the party's policy during the campaign. The Turner says no, the policy will have to wait until he becomes Prime Minister.
I've been more precise than the Prime Minister, and when I have that role as leader of our country, many people will know where I stand because I'll present a pro-democracy.
Does that mean you won't be more precise than you are now?
That's my position.
In fairness, abortion is perhaps the most difficult and divisive issue facing any political party these days.
Tomorrow, though, the Liberals plan to get down to specifics on an issue they do want to talk about, housing. And for the first time, Turner is expected to explain in detail what is one of the most important policies of his campaign platform.
Keith Bolk, CBC News, Ottawa.
Abortion was back before the Supreme Court of Canada today, and so was Joe Borowski, the anti-abortion activist from Manitoba.
For ten years, Borowski has been fighting Canada's abortion law.
The problem is, now that Borowski has made it to the Supreme Court, the law itself no longer exists.
The court threw it out last winter, so Borowski has changed tactics.
He now wants the court to decide whether an unborn infant has the right to life under the Constitution.
Neil MacDonald reports.
This court must accept...
Joe Borowski arrived at Canada's highest court today brimming with enthusiasm.
I can't imagine the courts not conferring the status of humanity to the unborn.
Borowski and his opponents aren't the only ones hanging on the outcome of this case.
Parliament couldn't decide what to do last July, and the Prime Minister has said any new abortion law will have to wait for the Borowski decision.
All that clearly has the Supreme Court annoyed.
The judges wondered out loud today what they were doing hearing a challenge to a law that doesn't even exist anymore.
They also questioned why they were being asked to do Parliament's job.
Madame Justice Claire Urdube came right to the point when Borowski's lawyer said the unborn have no protection.
The easy answer to that, said Urdube, is that it is up to the state to decide.
There would be protection if they decided to act.
But the government has been avoiding action on the issue.
Today, its lawyer tried again to put off the hearing indefinitely, without asking that it be dismissed.
Justice Antonio LeMare would have none of that.
He needled the government's lawyer, virtually daring him to ask that Borowski's appeal be quashed or dismissed.
You would like us to quash it, LeMare told the government lawyer. You just won't say so.
The judge made it clear his question would be better put to the politicians.
I realize you only take instructions, he told the lawyer.
But the lawyer refused to be drawn in.
Outside, Borowski called Mulroney gutless for refusing to create new legislation and refusing to ask outright that his case be dismissed.
He says don't deal with it. He hasn't got the courage, the political courage to say quash the thing.
Then the judge is suggesting why aren't you asking us to quash it.
Politically, I suppose it would not sell in a country, particularly during an election.
The court may yet decide it shouldn't be hearing this appeal at all.
In that case it will hand the whole thing right back to Brian Mulroney.
That's bad news during an election campaign.
It had forced the government off its safe middle ground and back to grips with the most emotional issue in the country.
Neil McDonald, CBC News, Ottawa.
CBC News has learned that a Canadian fisheries patrol vessel fired warning shots over the weekend
at an American scallop boat suspected of fishing illegally in Canadian waters.
The incident took place on Saturday in the Grand Banks off Newfoundland.
The Canadian patrol boat fired three bursts from its machine guns across the bow of the American boat.
The boat was not hit and it quickly fled back to American waters.
Coming up on the Journal.
An inside look at election 88.
The people who package our politicians have a new look for the leaders.
Last time I hadn't as much time to absorb the material as I needed.
Now it's part of me.
Those are the bad old days of patronage.
E.C. down la Provence de Quebec.
Finding the images and issues that sell.
The insider, a full edition documentary coming up on the Journal.
One week after the Ben Johnson story broke, a new allegation tonight involving athletes and steroids.
CBC News has been told that a number of athletes who train at the centre where Ben Johnson trains have used anabolic steroids.
CBC News has also learned that some other athletes filed a complaint about alleged steroid use with the Canadian Track and Field Association last February.
The complaint that some Mazda Track Club runners told them they were using steroids.
Ryan Dubre has the story.
The York University Track Centre is home to the Mazda Optimist Track Club, the most successful track and field club in Canada.
Ben Johnson is a member as are 14 other athletes on Canada's Olympic team.
CBC News has now learned that allegations Mazda athletes were taking steroids were brought to the Canadian Track and Field Association in a special meeting last February.
University of Toronto track team director Ted Gretzner was at the meeting,
which was called after his athletes who trained at the York Centre came back with what he called horrific tales concerning the use of anabolic steroids by Mazda club athletes.
They would say to us, we were talking to a bunch of people up there and they were telling us these are the drugs they take,
this is how much they take, this is when they take them and this is when they stop to get clean for a competition.
This is why we wanted to voice the concerns to the CTFA because in a lot of senses we got a feel that they were kind of bragging about taking these drugs.
It was almost like isn't this a big joke, we're reading the system.
But the then president of the Canadian Track Association says he didn't investigate further because the University of Toronto coaches had no hard evidence.
So we've adopted a very cautious approach to make sure that when allegations are made, if we go formal with them, we're going to have to be able to back them up and we need hard evidence to do that.
Individuals have spoken up from time to time, but getting that hard evidence has not been forthcoming.
One member of the Mazda club says he's seen evidence of steroid use at the York Centre.
Basically what it is, it's in the washroom or outside you have guys, maybe calling names or something,
guys who maybe want to enhance their performance by taking the stuff, take them.
Taking what stuff?
Steroids.
Anabolic steroids?
Yeah.
But Alan says the athletes he's seen taking drugs do not include Ben Johnson or other top members of the club.
And the president of the Mazda club says as far as he knows, none of his athletes take steroids.
That really surprises me because I've never seen or heard anything of that nature at all.
The Canadian Track and Field Association says it's trying to make it easier to catch athletes on steroids.
Last December it adopted a policy of short notice random drug tests.
But the association says it hasn't received the money it needs from Sport Canada.
And today, ten months later, there is still no program in place.
Brian Dubre, CBC News, Toronto.
AIDS is now a public health issue all over Canada, but in Nova Scotia in the last year it's been more public than usual.
Nova Scotians have been forced to deal with several AIDS cases that have troubled the community and the government.
They shared many of their concerns with a task force that's been traveling around the province.
Today that task force presented its report. Kevin Evans reports.
Eric Smith's teaching career came to an abrupt end a year and a half ago.
After word got out, he carries the AIDS virus.
Parents in the small fishing village where he taught threatened a boycott of the school and violence if Smith was allowed to continue in the classroom.
They can't guarantee that our children won't get AIDS.
To defuse the situation, the province created a task force on AIDS and made Eric Smith a member.
The task force held a series of province-wide public hearings.
The report released today was a year in the making.
This morning, Smith was upbeat about the process.
I think we've really accomplished what we set out to.
This afternoon, Nova Scotia's Health Minister told a news conference the government has accepted 40 of the report's 47 recommendations.
Most of them call for more extensive education programs to combat AIDS.
But the government's rejection of three controversial recommendations sparked an angry response from several AIDS support groups and prompted Eric Smith to leave the news conference in anger.
I don't remember ever being this disappointed. It's been a year wasted, basically.
The government rejected a task force recommendation to set up a system of anonymous AIDS testing as an alternative to the current process.
Nova Scotia is one of seven provinces that requires the names of people who test positive reported to health authorities.
Many who work with AIDS victims say concerns over confidentiality keep many from being tested.
We have to make this test the easiest thing in the world to get.
The province also rejected a task force suggestion that human rights legislation be enacted to protect people who have AIDS or are suspected of having the disease.
The health minister says that protection is already government policy.
And if we think it's working well, there's no need to put it into legislation.
For the minister to say that that's already policy is, as far as I'm concerned, it's foolishness.
I didn't get any help from the Department of Health when my case was in the news.
With the work of the AIDS task force now complete, Eric Smith has been offered a job as a special AIDS consultant to the Nova Scotia government.
After today, Smith says he's not sure about his future.
Kevin Evans, CBC News, Halifax.
One of the hostages in Lebanon has been freed.
He's met Al-Lashwar Singh, a citizen of India, a permanent resident of the United States.
Tonight he's in Damascus in a Syrian government guest house.
Singh was a university teacher in Beirut.
He was kidnapped in January of 1987, along with three Americans.
Well, they're back home, safe and sound.
The Discovery astronauts glided their space shuttle to a picture-perfect landing in the California desert this morning.
It was the end of a near-flawless four-day mission.
But more than that, a new start for the troubled American space program.
Eve Savery reports.
I can see Edwards from here, Houston. It sure looks gorgeous.
Discovery was still 30 kilometers above the Earth when the cameras first picked it up.
At the Mojave Desert landing strip, more than 400,000 people waited for the orbiter's safe return.
Gear down.
The astronauts say the only thing more dangerous than a launch is a landing.
But just like the launch, this landing was flawed.
Roger, we'll stop Discovery. Welcome back. A great ending to the new beginning.
NASA says the whole mission was absolute stunning success.
If Challenger symbolized the loss of American prestige, Discovery symbolizes its return.
So the first hand waiting to press the astronauts' flesh was that of George Bush, vice president and presidential candidate.
Because of you, our space program is back in the game.
But there are more players in the space game now.
If the Americans are to get back their lead, every mission must be as successful.
We're going to have to make sure that we do the same thing on the second flight and the third flight and the fourth flight and all the flights next year and in the future.
But for now, they're reveling in the return of the astronauts and of their pride.
I want you to remember that no matter how hard a setback we've had, we can bounce back from adversity.
NASA's challenge now will be to meet a schedule of launches almost as tight as before Challenger, while making sure safety standards never slip again.
Eve Sabre, CBC News, at the Johnson Space Center, Houston.
The political campaigning in Chile is all over.
On Wednesday, Chileans vote in a plebiscite on whether General Augusto Pinochet should stay on as the country's president, yes or no.
Both sides held huge rallies over the weekend in Santiago.
Both sides say they're going to win.
Joe Schlesinger reports on the tactics of Pinochet and his supporters as they try to convince Chileans to say yes.
The end of the campaign.
The supporters of C, of yes, yes to another eight years of Augusto Pinochet parade through Santiago, where the left had walked the day before the right rides.
It is a resentful right.
Why do you come here now? You don't like Pinochet.
They resent the Chilean regime's reputation as a cruel dictatorship, and they blame foreign journalists.
You are lying. You tell the world another thing, not the real thing.
This is the Chile Pinochet supporters see.
It is bustling, where before Pinochet they say there was unrest.
There is now stability.
The whole world Pinochet likes to boast is looking at us with envy.
He has shared his fancy uniforms for civis and promises to bring in democracy.
As for the harshness of his rule, I couldn't have gone to fight to save the country, he says with just a smile.
Fear of the violent past was the main thrust of his campaign.
His TV ads dwelled on the unrest during the years of his predecessor, Salvador Allende, the man he overthrew.
Every night the Pinochet campaign ran old film of Allende who died in the coup talking of revolutionary violence.
The opposition ran messages of optimism about a happy future.
The Pinochet forces mocked it with a spectre of a red death brandishing a hammer and sickle flag.
It is this dark vision that has dominated the Pinochet campaign.
The General's message is either me or chaos. How Chileans choose on Wednesday is likely to depend on what they feel hurt them more,
the confusion of the Allende years or the harshness of Augusto Pinochet.
Joe Schlesinger, CBC News, Santiago.
That's The National this Monday night. Thanks for watching.
Stay with us now for the Journal.
This morning at my recommendation, Her Excellency the Governor General dissolved the 33rd Parliament of Canada for a general election to be held on Monday, November 21st.
The race is on. A campaign of speeches, promises and media events.
Behind it all the campaign strategists, the people who advise the leader, package the image and sell the policies.
Tonight, a feature report. The Insiders.
The Journal with Paul Griffin.
Good evening. On Saturday, Prime Minister Mulroney ended the suspense, but unofficially the election campaign has been on for weeks now.
Behind the scenes in all three parties, the political pros have been polishing the mix of issues and images they hope will make for a winning strategy on voting day.
The Journal's Terrence McKenna has been talking to the key advisors in each party.
Tonight, his full edition report on how the campaign will unfold, according to the Insiders.
Like you. They can picture with the bike.
Here it comes again. Election time.
A time when politicians are in search of the great photo opportunity with the media wolves waiting for every misstep.
John Turner gingerly avoids the cow patties and the barbed wire.
When you're accident prone and the least popular political leader in the country, even getting your picture taken with a bemused herd of cows becomes a bit of a precarious balancing act.
The National Broadband has a different problem.
He's personally very popular with the voters. But as usual for the NDP, as the election comes closer, the prize gets further away.
The party is always at its most popular when there's no election in sight.
Their timing is off.
Brian Mulroney approaches the battle with a new air of caution and restraint.
His handlers have warned him. No more wild exaggerations, no more hot tempered outbursts.
And be careful about those impromptu interviews with reporters.
What's the difference between this and the last campaign?
Why don't I chat with you a little bit now? Why don't I chat with you after?
The Prime Minister chose the Empire Club of Toronto to test out his election strategy.
He couldn't have picked a more sympathetic audience than these blue-ribbon businessmen to support his claimed accomplishments of tax reform, fiscal restraint, and especially free trade.
Because of the free trade issue, the business elite here in Toronto is giving money in support almost exclusively to the Prime Minister.
Corporate contributions to the Liberal Party are way down.
John Turner is no longer the darling of Bay Street, and broadband never will be.
There are a lot of other advantages that Brian Mulroney will have in this campaign compared to 1984.
Consider the advantages of incumbency, starting with the ability to spend the taxpayers' money before the campaign even begins.
In 1984, it was the Liberal government that was spreading money around Liberal constituencies just before the election, especially in Quebec, where it seemed like every church basement community center had received a grant.
Brian Mulroney had always claimed to be outraged by such pork-barreling.
Well, that kind of philosophy that the Liberals do where they boondoggle every riding in Quebec and the few others that they hold elsewhere in the country is nothing short of scandalous.
But the Liberal handouts last time pale in comparison to the conservative pre-election spending spree this year. Consider the new Husky oil plant in Lloyd Minster and its $399 million federal contribution, unabashedly unveiled as part of the Tory Western campaign by candidates Don Mazinkowski and Bill McKnight.
There's lots more where that came from.
Across the West, in addition to Husky, another $3 billion for oil, agriculture, and other projects.
For Newfoundland, $3.4 billion for energy and railway compensation.
For Quebec, more than $1 billion for regional development and the environment.
For British Columbia, $150 million for a natural gas pipeline.
This is only part of it. In total, pre-election promises add up to more than $12 billion across the country.
All of this started in Quebec with the Lac Saint-Jean by-election campaign last June, which brought the Prime Minister's good friend Lucien Bouchard into politics.
A $164 million dress rehearsal for the present Tory spending campaign.
Now it's John Turner's turn to try to appear outraged at pork-barreling.
Just take the $164 million direct, multiply that by 295 constituencies and you've got a $50 billion election. Pretty rich.
Hasn't every liberal government done basically the same thing in the pre-election period though?
Oh, I suppose there's been cyclical techniques like that used, but Mr. Mulroney's converted this into an art form.
Are you saying you'd never do it?
I'm saying that I don't think I'd have the gall to be as shameless as he is.
The conservative campaign strategy team, led by Senator Norman Atkins, includes the most experienced political managers in the country.
They're confident about their pre-election strategy, including the big spending programs, according to their spokesman, John Tory.
First of all, I think that if you ask people which of these particular programs or announcements that they're opposed to, you'd find that most people are in favor of most of them.
I think secondly, a lot of these things are the culmination of long series of negotiations and that has been going on for many, many years.
So when we drop this oil plant into Lloyd-Minster and announce it on television with a big blue sign behind them saying, congratulations Lloyd-Minster, Bill McKnight MP, Don Masinkowski MP, you're telling me that this is accidental, that this is happening just before the election?
I'm not trying to pretend that at all. I think that, you know, that obviously if there are things that are coming close to fruition before an election campaign, you can finish the negotiations and get the thing announced.
I think to the extent people recognize that as part of your plan for the future of Canada, that it's a good thing. I mean, it helps politically.
The conservatives base their strategy on elaborate opinion polling. They have polls on every issue. During the campaign, they poll key writings every night.
They will spend over a million dollars on polls just for this election, far more than the other two parties.
But independent pollster Michael Adams thinks the Tories may have miscalculated on their pre-election spending.
You've got Mike Wilson on the one hand being a conservative finance minister, trying to hold back on federal government spending and trying to reduce the deficit and so on.
And you have that strategy for two years and then all of a sudden you get a strategy that says that we've got billions of dollars to give to regions that may or may not need these funds.
And so what it does is breed political cynicism. And I'm not sure that it is as helpful as the government may think.
It may be like Newton's third law of thermodynamics. It may breed an equal and opposite reaction in other regions that see that it's a wanton expenditure of their money.
Questions about pork barreling, especially in his own writing, are the sort that get under Brian Mulrooney's skin.
Is it a half a billion dollars, sir? Why would you ask a question like that? Well, I ask the question because you've listed some of the things that you're not interested in.
This is the Brian Mulrooney that gives his handlers nightmares.
Do you report yourself as having said that? No. As having used that figure? I hope that you'll report that you gave that figure and it didn't come from me or anybody else.
Lashing out at reporters, losing his cool. It's at times like this they can't get him into the limousine fast enough and get him away from the cameras.
This is the hypocritical position of the Liberal Party.
It was this type of behavior before a national audience in the House of Commons, hurling accusations, shouting himself hoarse at some miscreant in the opposition that contributed to the Prime Minister's plunge in personal popularity in the opinion polls.
Conservative strategists are desperate to stop it and John Tory says Mr. Mulrooney has agreed to tone down.
You end up getting into kind of a slanging match with people, with the people in the House of Commons, that the people of Canada don't really expect you to get into,
both from the standpoint that they don't expect it of someone in your office and that they don't really expect you to respond to those allegations because I think they know a lot of it is theater and a lot of it is sort of innuendo and gossip and so on.
Chief Liberal strategist Michael Kirby says the Conservatives are up to something and he's wise to it.
What they will attempt to do, the government will attempt to do, is to simply hide the Prime Minister and keep him away from situations in which he is at all uncontrolled,
simply because their biggest problems in the past four years have come from the Prime Minister's excessive rhetoric, his tendency to say things which border on not being true or at least exaggerate the truth substantially,
and I think that his handlers will want to be very, very careful that they don't put him into that sort of format where in fact his rhetoric and his tendency to excess are allowed to fly.
They will want to control him very tightly.
Ed Broadbent says the Prime Minister is not going to coast to victory with his new low profile tactics.
Because he's got a four year record to defend and he can't crawl away from it, he can't sneak away from it, he can't talk in a low voice away from it.
It's going to be there and we will be talking about that betrayal of all kinds of commitments.
Do you have a strategy to bait the Prime Minister to try and make him exaggerate or interpret?
I don't think the Prime Minister needs baiting at all. I think he's quite capable of doing that on his own.
I mean the challenge for the Prime Minister's handlers will be the extent to which they let him say anything that isn't scripted.
If he starts saying things that aren't scripted, he doesn't need any help from us to exaggerate.
During the past four years we have tried to deal with a variety of public questions.
At the Prime Minister's speech to the Empire Club, you can see the new conservative tactics in action.
As Mr. Mulroney is speaking, his Press Secretary Bruce Phillips is in the back of the hall watching the script,
while another advisor, Michael Meehan, keeps a close eye on the performance.
But the Prime Minister can't resist breaking away from the text to tell one of his favorite old stories,
the one about the millionaire campaign worker Vanden Hevel, who was asked why he accepted the lowly task of walking the candidate's dog.
And Vanden Hevel said, you got it all wrong.
That might look like a dog to you, but it looks like an embassy to me.
Uh-oh. It's a crowd pleaser all right, especially in this crowd.
But the handlers worry that it's joking about the important things.
Those are the bad old days of patronage.
The candidate realizes that he better get back to the script.
Well, we have to...
Polster Michael Adams says the Prime Minister has reason to take care.
Brian Mulroney gave some very, very bad signals in the sense that on the patronage issues,
he was seen as rewarding his friends.
There's a concern that our regional development strategy is in fact just a... is patronage writ large.
These sorts of things make people very, very cynical.
And he came to the office with very high expectations.
And the moral standards, the ethical standards for government was one of the top things.
It was a thing that turned things against John Turner and turned things on for Brian Mulroney and the Conservatives.
And he disappointed Canadians on that score.
Not that John Turner is eager to bring up patronage with this memory still fresh from 1984.
You had an option, sir, to say no.
And you chose to say yes to the old attitudes and the old stories of the Liberal Party.
That, sir, if I may say respectfully, that is not good enough for Canadians.
I had no option. I was able to...
That is a vowel of failure.
Mr. Turner made a rather large mistake in first mentioning the patronage issue during the TV debate in 1984.
Are you going to tell Mr. Turner to avoid using the word patronage this time?
I don't know that we've ever even explicitly discussed that.
It seems to me that it was a problem for us in 1984.
There's no question that the debate did not go well. Everybody knows that.
It's equally clear that in spite of what Mr. Mulroney said then, he's run a patronage operation that exceeds anything that any other federal government has had.
I have no further comments. Thank you very much.
These are the ghosts liberals will conjure to haunt the Prime Minister.
The parade of his ministers driven out of the government by scandal.
Mr. Mulroney dragged himself down in the polls by clinging to these men too long.
But can the opposition tar him again with these scandals at election time?
His strategists think not.
Well, I think what they're trying to suggest is that they're going to run a campaign that sort of says that these people have been involved in a number of scandals and therefore are somehow unfit for public office.
And I think that, I don't think that'll work first of all because I think the Canadian public know.
They know that we have made some mistakes, that we have had some problems.
They know as well that the Prime Minister has acknowledged those mistakes publicly in television interviews on the Journal and other places.
There has been a let down.
On the Journal and elsewhere the Prime Minister has executed a two part strategy on patronage.
Say sorry, then emphasize the positive.
But you know, we've appointed more liberals, more NDPers, more independents to jobs, sensitive, powerful jobs in the process than any other government in history.
Running against the odds, John Turner is trying to keep up a brave front, but the strategists behind the leader give a surprisingly frank assessment of liberal problems.
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What are you waiting for?
Sally Field.
Do you recognize me?
Are you a sex part?
I look like Buckwayne.
Tom Hanks.
What? Do you have a question? Your hand has been up as long as I've been here.
He thinks I'm funny.
I don't mess around with funny.
I'm fly.
Yes, that's funny.
Now playing in Toronto starts Friday at theatres nationwide.
The liberal strategy team here around the table at campaign headquarters is spending a lot of time thinking about new ways to attack Brian Mulrooney.
They have plenty of their own problems to be worrying about.
One, the party is in desperate financial straits.
Two, the strategists are fighting amongst themselves.
Three, inexperience in key positions.
Tour director Doug Kirkpatrick and campaign director John Webster have never managed a national campaign.
But the biggest problem of all is the leader himself.
Only 11 percent of Canadians want him to be the Prime Minister.
His last election campaign performance was a disaster and he spent much of the last four years under siege from his own party.
What effect does it have on a campaign plan when the party leader seems a strong negative factor, Mr. Turner seems to have a very low personal popularity everywhere in the country?
Well, obviously it has some impact in the sense it gets harder to get people to vote for you.
But the fact is I think that what will happen in his campaign is that public attitudes toward Mr. Turner are going to change substantially.
I think if you've seen his performance out on the road in the last six months to a year, it is significantly better than it was when he first came back to politics in 1984.
You've admitted that your performance was kind of weak in the last campaign.
What mistakes did you make the last time that you're going to correct this time?
Well, you see, it's like taking a case to court.
If you haven't had much time to review the material, you're not very good before the jury and you're not very good before the judge.
Last time I hadn't as much time to observe the material as I needed.
Now it's part of me.
And it being part of me, I'm going to be able to sell it, I believe, and convince Canadians.
The last time you ran with a really unpopular leader was with Mr. Trudeau, I think in 1979 and 80.
And I remember him being hidden, making the minimum of personal appearances.
Was that a success?
The comment on 1980, I think it's debatable how unpopular Mr. Trudeau was, but the simple fact is that we won in 1980,
and therefore that certainly proves that if I take your premise for a moment that Mr. Trudeau was unpopular in 1980,
it certainly proves that you can win with an unpopular leader.
Polster Michael Adams says John Turner can maybe overcome his problems by wrapping himself in the flag.
His major problem is that he's seen as a weak, indecisive leader and they're not really sure where he comes from.
So he's got to use this nationalism vehicle to define himself to the Canadian people.
The question is, can he do it convincingly?
Well, this is the most important fight of my career.
Frankly, it's the cause of my life.
These days, John Turner is doing his best to show that real emotion about free trade.
I never thought that I'd ever have the opportunity to say in the terms I'm now able to talk about how I feel about Canada.
Anti-free trade sentiment is strong in the farming country of rural Quebec.
It's in areas like this where John Turner will be campaigning,
talking to farmers and others whose livelihood will be in danger by the free trade agreement.
Mr. Turner has received private advice from some liberals who want him to soften his anti-free trade stance.
Mesdames et Messieurs, Messieurs, les députés.
Recent newspaper stories suggested he was considering doing just that.
But Polster Michael Adams says such a move would be fatal.
If the liberals backtrack on their position on free trade, they will commit political suicide.
It would be an egregious political error.
They took two and a half years in caucus and Mr. Turner thinking about this issue
and responding to how the conservatives are negotiating free trade in a painstaking and painful way
to evolve this position that ultimately got expression in terms of Mr. Turner saying he would rip up the deal.
For him to backtrack on that now, particularly after the challenge to the federal government to call an election
and to ask the Senate not to pass the free trade legislation,
for him to backtrack now would violate the number one rule,
which is a rule of if you really believed it, then how can you possibly backtrack?
And what Canadians would say is, will he backtrack on everything he says?
We're going to tear the deal up!
Right!
Is the Liberal Party going to keep promising to tear up the free trade agreement?
We don't need to promise to tear up the free trade agreement.
What Mr. Turner said when he had his statement in July was crystal clear.
He said that the Senate will not pass the issue until the Canadian people have voted on it.
And therefore, the tearing up business is not really an issue.
Another way of expressing it is to say, in effect what's happened is the people of Canada are being given an opportunity to tear it up.
Politicians won't need to.
Ed Broadman has always had a few problems of his own in the pre-election period.
Before the 84 campaign, without notifying the party,
he suddenly announced an NDP government would crack down on deficit spending, a complete about phase.
Without, I want to stress, an increase in the federal deficit of one penny.
Until that moment, the party had favored increasing government spending without worrying about the deficit.
When his union backers reprimanded him, he abruptly reverted to the old party line.
In the last few weeks, Mr. Broadman's loose lip has got him in trouble again.
He's been talking to reporters about post-election scenarios for a coalition government,
triggering headlines which are political poison for the NDP.
His campaign strategists were furious.
They want to appear as a government in waiting, not as a prospective junior partner in a coalition.
And so Mr. Broadman's principal secretary, George Nekitsis, was assigned to make sure the leader did not even mention the word coalition in his most recent interview.
The fact that the leader was asked about seven questions on the C word and refused to respond to any of them.
George gets a big pat on the head.
The NDPers accuse other parties of moving left onto their territory at election time.
But at the same time, they are moving right.
The party is moving away from peaceniks.
True, they would not buy the expensive nuclear-powered submarines that the Tory government wants.
But they have pledged to spend the same amount of money in other areas of defense.
At its federal council meeting last April, in an attempt to woo more moderate voters,
the party placed on the back burner its controversial proposal to withdraw Canada from NATO.
Now they promise not to do it during their first term.
But strategist Robin Sear says it hasn't been a matter of compromising principles.
I don't think it has been. All we've said is this is the time frame that it will take for us to do it.
As opposed to being very general about when it will happen, we're saying it's going to take, we think, more than the first term to do.
The step-by-step approach.
It's hapism.
The way the separatists move towards separatism in Quebec.
Or the way anybody attempting to move public opinion approaches a large policy issue.
That is to say in pieces rather than in big chunks.
Pragmatic.
Realistic.
Our objective is to end up number one on election day.
So this is the slick new image for Ed Broadbent. More conservative, more soothing.
He looks more like a blue pinstripe banker than the woolly, tweety professor we once knew.
The old Ed Broadbent was uncompromising on fundamental principles.
But the new Ed Broadbent seems open to almost any compromise that will bring more votes.
EC de la Provence de Quebec!
In Quebec, his party has accommodated extreme nationalists who want to ban the English language from public science.
In 1986, he even embraced the wild renegade MP Robert Tupin, who had bolted from the Conservative Party.
There's a deep commitment on Robert's part, a commitment to being re-elected as a New Democrat.
But whoops, only ten months later, Mr. Tupin stormed away from his fellow New Democrats, calling them all radicals.
But it's the nature of Mr. Broadbent's relationship with his union backers that still gives most voters pause about putting him in power.
Well, a lot of those people have some concerns that the NDP would get into power, start spending like money was going out of style,
start doubling the size of the civil service, let the postal union run the country kind of thing.
And there's a lot of sense that the New Democrats are not quite up to speed as where they should be in 1988.
At this year's Labor Day Parade in Toronto, you could get a flavor of the coming battle over free trade.
The NDP approach is a little more strident, a little more anti-American than the liberals.
But how anti-American can you get before you alienate voters?
Quite a bit, according to NDP strategist Robin Sears.
I think we can be quite anti-American as long as it is constructed on a positive Canadian sovereignty foundation.
That is to say, you can be quite opposed to the Reagan record on the environment, on Central America.
If you start off saying, I'm proud to be a Canadian, I think Canadians represent a different thing in the world and in North America.
Ed Broadbent is worried that those who really want to stop free trade will vote liberal, and he has to stop it.
Oh, there's no question about it.
The Liberal Party, first of all, is divided right across the country.
Half the Liberal leaders at the provincial bases are for free trade.
And Mr. Turner and his caucus have flip-flopped all over on the issue for the past two years.
So we are decisively opposed, have been, and we are throughout our provincial sections.
Secondly, it's a question not simply of maintaining an independent Canada, but it's what kind of Canada and for whom.
Free Canada, trade Mulrooney! Free Canada!
Anti-free trade protesters will likely follow the Prime Minister around in the campaign,
just as they were waiting for him here at the hotel where he spoke to the Empire Club of Toronto.
But Mr. Mulrooney seems eager to get the focus away from free trade onto other issues.
The dessert over here? They're waiting for the dessert.
And so rather than confront the Toronto protesters, he came and left by the back door.
The pollsters say the Tories are changing tactics for good reason.
They are vulnerable on one point, and it is ironic that it is the free trade deal,
it is our Canada-U.S. relations where the Conservatives are vulnerable.
Canadians, in 1984, when the Conservatives came to office, believed that it was time to declare peace on the United States.
And Brian Mulrooney said this, and the Canadian people supported him.
And now, in 1988, when we ask Canadians about Canada-U.S. relations, they think we've gone too far the other way.
The pendulum has swung too close to the United States, and Canadians are concerned that we've done nothing in the last four years
to assert our economic, our cultural, or our political sovereignty.
And they would like to do a trade deal with the United States, that's for sure.
They want to do it out of strength, not out of a position of weakness.
They don't want to see us going cap in hand to the United States and saying, please, sir, can we have a free trade deal?
And so the Prime Minister has to bring other issues to the fore.
He needs a new, broader political agenda to go with his new, softer political image.
In the last few weeks, he has moved to establish a record of achievements on social issues.
He pushed his child care bill through the House of Commons,
and he invested $110 million to promote reading skills in Canada.
But the environment is his biggest new issue.
Last month, out of the blue, a handful of citizens fighting to preserve the Rouge River Valley near Toronto
received a letter from the Prime Minister's office expressing interest in their cause, wanting to arrange a visit.
Then Tory Environment Minister Tom McMillan showed up with a $10 million grant
and a proposal to turn the area into a national park.
I am convinced it should be protected.
All this was a surprise, coming as it did from the same government, which canceled programs monitoring pollution
and drastically cut back staffing and real spending at Environment Canada in the last four years.
What accounts for the conservative change of heart on the environmental issue?
Polster Michael Adams knows.
The environment is interesting.
If you look at attitudes to smoking, it's kind of a metaphor to tell you what's happened.
You know, smoking 10 or 15 years ago was a sign of sophistication and maturity.
It then became a bad habit. Today it's homicide or suicide.
And that happened in the lifespan of 15 or 20 years.
The environment used to be a regret about aesthetics, you can't go swimming at the beach, and so on.
In the last five years, our research has shown that the environment has become a life-and-death issue.
85% of Canadians now believe that environmental pollution is damaging their own personal health and safety.
Mr. Mulroney will be running around the country hugging trees and pretending to be as convinced an environmentalist as this country's ever seen.
And in that, he is adopting a strategy that liberals have adopted for generations,
which is to appear to campaign from the left and govern from the right.
And I think that has produced a sense of commonality among the three parties, which is rather artificial,
and that voters will then judge who has credibility to deliver on child care,
believability on environmental protection.
So as Campaign 88 begins, what are the most significant changes in Canadian politics since 1984?
First, there is one strong issue, free trade, that separates Brian Mulroney, who is for it, from the other leaders, who are against it.
On all other issues, though, the parties are moving closer together, crowding the centre.
They all promise the voters what the polls tell them the voters want.
That's why John Turner took the unprecedented step of starting his campaign early, to be able to say the liberals promised these things first.
But perhaps the most significant factor going into this election is the volatility of the electorate.
More than 50% of the voters have indicated that either they're undecided or they're willing to switch their vote, depending on what happens during the campaign.
That's why the parties spend so much money, time and effort on image, tactics and strategy.
Politics is more scientific now. The parties know what you want to hear.
They're just in a competition to make you believe them when they say it to you.
For The Journal, I'm Terence McKenna.
When The Journal returns, a preview of one of our new election features.
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In 1991, they came to Earth. They learned our language.
My true name is Stangia Sorinza.
Sorinza, well, Kusunaita.
Took jobs and tried to fit in.
Tell me the truth. Have you ever made it with one of us?
But there's something about them you don't know.
Prepare yourself for alienation.
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Check local listings for details.
Honey, you deserve a night out. So just go to the ballet, relax, and have some fun.
Are you sure?
I'm positive.
Love you.
I love you, too.
Oh, don't forget, Scotty has to practice for his recital.
Yes, honey.
And Amy has some homework that she hasn't finished yet.
She certainly does.
Bye.
From the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Alright, kids, somebody order a pizza.
Finally tonight, a brief look ahead at a regular election report we'll be having between now and November 21st.
I'm Kevin Tibbles, and I'm here in the employee cafeteria at Phillips Electronics in suburban Scarborough, Ontario.
Why here?
Because over the next two months, these people, along with most other Canadians, are going to have to make a decision.
Who to vote for in the upcoming federal election.
Over the course of the campaign, you'll get to know a handful of these ordinary Canadians.
Canadians like Carol Dewar down on the shop floor.
I'm going to vote for the NDP party, because I believe they're a very necessary party.
I wouldn't like them in as a majority, but I think they're very necessary as a minority to help control the other party and keep them in line.
Morning, Robert.
Morning, first.
Financial Controller Robert Ozero works just upstairs.
He'll be weighing the options, listening to the leaders.
He'll vote either Tory or grit, but so far there's a dilemma.
I guess in a sentence I'd tell you that the liberals are disorganized and the Tories have no credibility, and as a voter I figure that's one hell of a choice.
Hi, how are you?
And you'll be shaking hands with this man.
He's Art Finestone, a traveling salesman for Phillips, and had died in the war liberal.
But this time out he's wary of his leader.
Kretzian has got charisma.
Trudeau had charisma.
And yet even Joe Clark had charisma.
But unfortunately you're going to put Turner up against Mulroney.
Mulroney will blow him out of the water on a one-on-one.
Where all the campaign promises, the leaders' personalities affect where these people put an X the day they visit the ballot box.
So we'll be finding out throughout the federal campaign as these people tell us what's on their minds.
That's in the weeks to come on the Journal.
Throughout the campaign we'll bring you special reports to help focus the issues, including a series of formal debates and one of the most important issues of this election, free trade.
That's our program for tonight.
I'm Paul Griffin.
Good night.
One group would get the benefit.
Another group would get the disadvantage of dying.
Our asbestos goes to Thailand.
The fifth of state premiere tomorrow.
This is CBC Television.
CFCY 630.
Historical historian David Wheel joins Wayne Collins for an affectionate look back at the early days on PEI every Tuesday on Island Morning.
Apparently there was this one horse that was considered to be extra smart and when he figured that it was time for touch-up on the shoes, he'd just go down to the forge by himself.
Listen for them times, Tuesday at 750 on CBC Radio FM 96.
He'd appear at the door and they'd say, here he is.
This man has a record.
The world over.
From Miami to Monaco.
Holland to Hong Kong.
If you know this man, you know his message.
You see the ability, not the disability.
You see not the wheelchair, but the person in it.
After my accident, the CPA helped me find the strength to build new dreams.
Together we made them realities.
And for the record, I'd like to say thanks.
The Maritimes Tonight.
Regional news, weather and sports with Frank Cameron and Doug Saunders.
In the news tonight.
The Nova Scotia report on AIDS.
The government likes and doesn't like it.
Too close for comfort, Dartmouth police want to escape from the cop shot.
And in sports, a call for a clean-up of amateur sports.
Good evening everyone.
A report by the Nova Scotia Task Force on AIDS was made public today.
It contained 47 recommendations.
Some already have been rejected by the government.